Insomnia or Similar
by Casuistry
Summary: AU college fic. I'm aware it's cliché but I will do my best to be original within the context! I'm being self aware of my limitations! Anyway, it's groovy. BV K18 GCC rating subject to change. If you do not click to read this I'm afraid you're not awesome
1. Fig Tree

**Insomnia or Similar**

_Casuistry_

**Chapter One: Fig Tree**

It is more painful to be alone with someone by your side than without. Does that make sense? Alienation from the figure sprawled in a valley of sweaty sheets is harder to handle than alienation from nothing. Somehow, these thoughts always come at night, or when it's raining. Logically, when it's raining at night the feelings are worse.

She was wearing too-baggy jeans and a lacy cream bra. She lost too much weight since she left home, and is only now starting to regain it. Yesterday, a friend told her she was getting fat and she wondered what her boyfriend thought. Did he look at her and wonder where the waif-like creature he'd moved in with had gone?

She brushed her hair without looking in the mirror. It would have done nothing to help in the darkness, and she didn't want to wake him with the harsh florescence of the bedside lamp. She had been asking him to drop by the hardware store and get a softer bulb for weeks, but he hadn't done it yet. It was always the little things that drove her to gulping tears. She had never been a graceful crier, and she fancied herself rather fish-like when her face was swollen with the exertion.

She put on a shirt in the dark. It was 3 am and she was getting dressed for her classes already. She wouldn't be able to pull sleep into bed beside her, however frantically she grasped at its wispy tendrils. His body was too hot beside her - the sheets too sticky. Her first class was at 9 and she needed to be a happy person by then. It wouldn't do to turn up looking like, in his words, "a puffy great frog". He had meant it as a joke, but in her current state she was hypersensitive. She wanted desperately to go home. Giving up on university and crawling under her bed was what she desired more than anything else in the world, but she felt that to return now would be admitting defeat.

"That's right," she whispered as she felt her way from the room. "I'm just a stupid rich bitch who needs her Mummy and Daddy to spoon-feed her through college. Congratulations, me."

The campus was eerily quiet at night, and she worried incessantly about murderers and rapists. Yet, it was still better than the apartment she rented less than a block away. The musk of sex didn't suffocate her here. The dew on the carefully clipped grass reminded her of fairy stories her mother would tell so many years ago, and of the night she caught pneumonia sneaking out to try and catch them as they danced to deposit each watery gem upon a blade of grass, carefully and precisely. She thought on that night as one of magic and childish wonderment, but it was the night she stopped believing the fairy stories. No pixie magic deposited the dew, only a slow condensation as the early morning fog touched upon the lawn. She had cried.

Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she created lecture notes for her friends. They had laughed at the suggestion and insisted that it was too much trouble for her to go to. She had persisted, they had relented. She didn't tell them it was a welcome reprieve from the drudgery of her everyday life. If she could keep up a programme of independent, self-contained study for her whole life she could be happy. Maybe. She wasn't sure whether she'd be less lonely or more without her boyfriend.

She whipped up her head, straining her neck, as she saw a figure slip across the grounds. Her hands clenched into fists unconsciously. The stories one heard these days, you couldn't go anywhere without being murdered or raped or both. On the other hand, the figure could simply be the innocuous enough student she had seen flitting around at this time of morning before. Well, she imagined him to be both harmless and a student. She came here for the sense of silence in the morning quite often, and sometimes he would be there. They had never met, and she wasn't sure he noticed her, but she guessed him a student from his appearance. Normally he loitered around the tree she was presently seated beneath and she wondered if her placement tonight was a subconscious attempt to meet the enigmatic stranger. She hoped she wasn't so desperate yet.

His reasons for being out and about at such an hour were unknown to her but she guessed, by his lack of any meaningful activity, that it was insomnia or similar.

He hovered a few metres from the tree and she knew he had seen her. The tight jeans and jacket made her smile. Already showing off at this time of the day? He looked uncomfortable when she caught his eye, and she worried he would leave so soon. She needed the company.

"I'm in your place," she said, just loud enough for him to hear. He said nothing, and she gestured, asking him to come over. "That shouldn't stop you being where you like." He leant against the tree in a standing position and she typed for a while. The sky turned a richer shade of blue, less black. "Can't sleep?" He grunted non-committally, and she took that to be an affirmative answer. The power light flashed once on her laptop and she turned it off. She was having trouble concentrating, her thoughts wandering to the body occupying her bed.

"Can't you sleep?" He was silent, and she snuck a peek up at him. He was smoking, the smouldering tip of the cigarette an ember against the lightening sky. "I'm here because I'm lonely." The words surprised even herself - she hadn't meant to open up to this guy. All she knew about him was gleaned from fleeting glances with only the moon's waxy light to aid her.

"Pathetic."

She turned her computer back on.

**oOo**

Julianna Gero (the verbal alliteration always made her wince) was sipping Kami-knows-what from a brightly-coloured teacup with a rooster painted on the side. Babymachiattocinolattewhippedcreamophile or something. Short black with whipped cream on the top. It was good, but she wasn't sure about the rooster cup. Cafés were trying too hard to be quirky, to stand out from all the others that lined the street. It was a block away from the university she attended and flanked by swanky apartment buildings, so ultra-trendy coffee shops were an inescapable truth. It did make her mornings more interesting, though. She always sampled the most unusual-sounding coffee in the shop she chose on her way to morning lectures, and they did offer quite an eclectic range.

She glanced at her chunky watch and swore under her breath when she noticed it was already 9. She was supposed to meet Chichi 15 minutes ago and, knowing the dark-haired young woman, she would still be standing in their meeting place, tapping one foot irritably and all riled up and ready to complain about being late for class. Ju suspected she just liked having something to be cranky about.

She checked her watch again as she pumped up the footpath to where Chichi was standing (as expected, tapping her foot and looking cross) and mentally congratulated herself on how quickly she'd run, especially given the shoulder bag she was bearing. Although the two were undertaking different courses of study, they had several classes in common. Both girls were undertaking a Bachelor of Arts, which they felt sure was going to assure them some mighty fine jobs in the future. On this particular morning, each had a lecture on women in politics. It didn't seem a big deal for Ju to be a few minutes late for a lecture, but for her hard-working and dedicated friend it was a nightmare.

"You know, Chichi, you could always just go in without me. I'd get over it." Chichi snorted irritably. She knew it was true, but she would feel guilty going in without her friend. What if it turned out she'd actually been hit by a car and had crawled up the path to their meeting spot, blood and intestines trailing behind her, looking for her friend to call the ambulance and Chichi had just gone inside? Admittedly, this was an unlikely turn of events but there was no denying that it could happen.

"What time does Bulma finish?" She asked, ignoring the blonde's comment. Although Bulma was in her second year of study to their first, she was the same age and they had attended primary school together until she'd been accelerated into high school. They were still firm friends and they had not failed to notice Bulma's energy for life in general fading over the last month.

"I don't know. She said she'd meet us around 11 at the Fig Tree," Ju replied under her breath as they entered the lecture hall. The lecturer didn't even notice they were late, and they slid into some empty chairs at the back

Chichi frowned.

**oOo **

The Fig Tree was, for lack of a better word, a nook. It was a small café wedged between an offbeat record store and an army disposal. It was always full, but never felt crowded. The staff were heartily pierced and the tables had chess or backgammon boards printed on them. Young people would sit and smoke substances that may or may not be tobacco while they played backgammon and listened to local semi-reggae bands. The food was nothing to write home about. Not bad, but not fantastic, either. They had an extensive menu of vegetarian snacks and so on, but none of the three friends had ever felt any driving urge to sample a zucchini, tomato and pumpkin tart.

Bulma was already waiting for them, idly nibbling on a slice of cheesecake and twirling .

"I was thinking," she began as they slid in beside her, "that I should do it today." Both of her friends instantly picked up on the topic of discussion. She had been toying for about a month with the idea of breaking up with her boyfriend, Yamcha. Although she got along with him well enough she felt that they were growing apart. Chichi suspected there had been some catalyst for their sudden distance, but Bulma would refuse to discuss anything of the sort.

"Do it."

She had been trying for a week now to scratch together enough courage to do it. It was hard to count the times she had dialled his mobile number and hung up after the first few rings, or how many times she'd said 'I need to talk to you' as they ate breakfast and then lamely finished by asking him to pass the juice. She didn't want to let go.

She had her phone out before she even realised she was reaching for it, and Chichi was leaning over dialling in Yamcha's number. She wouldn't have to speak to him if she called now, she realised. He would be in a tutorial right now and she could just leave a message. It seemed cold, but if she didn't do it now she probably wouldn't do it ever.

Chichi had her hands clasped together and was beaming enthusiastically, giving Bulma the occasional nod of encouragement. A quick glance at Julianna revealed she was sampling the cheesecake. She had always been apathetic about Yamcha.

"Hey, this is Yamcha. I can't answer my phone right now, so leave a message."

She drew in a ragged breath.

"Yamcha, hi, this is Bulma. There's... Kami. I've been trying to say this for weeks. Uhm, see, the thing is, I love you. I really do but... I don't know. This is hard. I don't feel close to you any more, and I know you don't feel close to me, either. I... I guess what I'm trying to say is, uh... how do people do this? I guess...

"I guess I'm breaking up with you?"

**oOo**

Yay! The first chapter of my first fic! Uhm, I'd really appreciate getting at least one review. I'm sure SOMEONE will click on this. REVIEW. I don't even care if you want to flame me or whatever, just review me, ok? My writing machine over there needs reviews to power it.

Maybe I should explain the ages of everyone? I don't know. I DO know that I lead such an incredibly boring life that I have courses of study in a spreadsheet here, based on what one would study at an actual university near where I live. I'm a dork! I feel like I'm forgetting someone, though. I have Chichi, 18 (conveniently named Julianna in this fic for it is a pretty name, and no one is called 18 in real life so there), Bulma, Krillin, Goku, Yamcha, Picollo and Vegeta. Who am I forgetting? Am I forgetting no one and my brain is merely playing tricks on me?

Also, please inform me: is this a suitable chapter length? I do not know these things! Also, I apologise for the suckness of my writing, and for not making everything Americanised. I know it would've been better for you that way. But let's do it my way this time, baby? Your way just hurts so bad.

REVIEWWWWWWWW.


	2. Chapter 2

"Yamcha, your phone's beeping at you."

"Shut up. My credits are not balancing with my debits again. I've screwed something up."

"I'm going to listen to your message."

"I think I did something wrong with my double debits."

"Oooo, it's Bulma."

"Did yours balance? Mine is not balancing, still."

"Oh... oh, Yamcha, I think you should listen to this. Uh..."

"I didn't even want to do accounting. Why is this a compulsory subject?"

"YAMCHA." Krillin reached over and pressed the cell phone against his friend's unwilling ear while Yamcha continued to attempt double debiting. His attempts lasted only the few seconds before he realised what the familiar, almost comforting, voice of his long-time girlfriend was telling him through his message bank. Dumping him? She was dumping him? He stared down at his book.

Of course. He'd written that 6 down as a 9.

"It's balancing now. I fixed it." Krillin's brow furrowed in obvious concern. That wasn't really an appropriate response to being dumped, in anyone's books.

"Yamcha?"

"It's ok, Krillin, it's balancing. Hey, could I crash on your couch tonight?" His tone was casual, almost flippant. This sort of reaction, mused the short teen, should have been easier for me to deal with than him bawling his eyes out or going into a rage.

Somehow, it seemed worse. He volunteered to help move clothes and personal possessions from Bulma's apartment.

It seemed like the calm before a storm.

**oOo**

"Goku's having a hot pot tonight, if you guys want to come." Chichi gave her friends an expectant look that virtually dared them to turn down the invitation. 'Do you want to live?' asked the look, in a way that made the spoken question completely irrelevant.

"Chi, I don't even know what the hell a hot pot IS, let alone if I want to come to one." Julianna had one hand on her hip, coiled into a fist. She was the only girl either Chichi or Bulma knew who could make a hand-on hip pose look dangerous in an 'I'm going to punch in your face' way, rather than an 'I'm going to withhold sex for three years' way.

"Oh, I know!" The corners of Bulma's mouth twitched slightly as she tried to maintain a straight face. "It's a drugs night, where everyone smokes pot and, uh, gets hot, sweaty and naked."

The joke itself wasn't funny, it was the look of over-protective horror on the small, Asian woman's face that left Bulma and Julianna snickering conspiratorially.

"He doesn't like to cook."

"More to the point," Ju added, "Nobody likes his cooking."

"Well, yeah, okay. Anyway, a hot pot is a party where everyone brings a whole bunch of ingredients and we shove them together to make a casserole." She gave the two a suspicious look. "And I'll be inspecting contributions at the door. If you guys bring whipped cream and a tub of Vegemite you can't come in. I'm the bouncer."

Bulma did her best innocent eyes as Chichi turned the key in her door and slipped inside, shutting the door lightly behind her. Julianna turned to the blue-haired girl.

"I'm going to go out and buy five kilos of lentils."

"She's going to be so pissed at you."

"Okay, six."

**oOo**

Accounts would say that the hot pot was a smashing success, and that Chichi's avocado, mango and lentil casserole was surprisingly delicious – wherever did she get the idea?

Some of a more critical nature would say that the party was rubbish. These people were passed out on the couch, blind-drunk, by half-past eight, blue hair flowing across the tasteless, clashing cushions and beneath the people who had given the more favourable accounts, who sat and chatted, laughing, on the sofa. To be honest, they would have done more than just chatted, but it would have felt strange to them to do so next to Bulma's unconscious form. Besides, Chichi wanted to eavesdrop on a certain conversation.

"You know, I actually quite like lentils", remarked Krillin, pushing around the remains of his casserole, long since gone cold, with his fork.

"I brought six kilos of them."

"They were your idea?" He sounded genuinely impressed with her ingenuity. Ugh. If she didn't know better, Julianna would have suspected that he had a creepy little crush on her. Gross! "You must be a good cook."

She gave him a withering look. "They were a joke, moron. Anyway, the only cooking I do is what can be done in the microwave. Can't be arsed doing anything more complicated."

He laughed nervously and it came out so loud he could have died. "I'm the same. Cooking's not my thing."

She shot him a sarcastic smile and he wondered how difficult it would be to hack off his own tongue with a butter-knife. It would probably take so long she'd get exasperated and think he couldn't even do that right. It was his honest opinion that Julianna Gero was a bitch. But, you know, in a good way. Like she was such a bitch you wanted to impress her, and it would be this amazing honour to have her look at you and be impressed with what she saw, not because she was a woman of discerning taste and heartfelt opinions, but because she was such an amazing cow that she didn't like anyone, and wouldn't it be just fantastic to be the only one she did like?

Not to mention her legs. All the way to her arse, my friend. All the way.

He allowed himself to at least give her a broad smile. She rolled her eyes and stood up, her chair scraping harshly against the floor.

"I'm going home." She shot the small man a look. "I can't stand it here anymore."

**oOo**

She awoke at 3am, as was her custom. She had expected to sleep through the night when not by his side, but she supposed that by now it was as much the state of her body clock as his heat that woke her.

She was alone in the central room of the small flat, sprawled across the couch with her skirt riding up around her waist. The table was littered with dirty plates, the lentils growing into a gluggy, glue-like paste as the night (or morning, she corrected herself) wore on. Glasses sat on the coffee table, the soft-drink dregs congealing like syrup in the bottom. She felt like vomiting.

She stood with shaky knees, pulling down her skirt and stepping into the sneakers she had left lying haphazardly at the side of the rug. The air felt cool, although in reality the weather was quite warm, even at this time of the morning. She splashed water on her face and drank from the kitchen tap, savouring the tinny taste of tap water.

Her notebook computer sat on the kitchen bench in its bag. She slung it over her shoulder and let herself out. It was time for her morning ritual.

**oOo**

She set the laptop on the ground. There was no dew on the ground this morning, and she worried there would be another drought soon. Water restrictions were a pain.

She checked the status on the batteries and, satisfied, set about composing a spreadsheet detailing the study plans she proposed for Goku who, in her humble opinion, could use her help.

She heard the soft crunch of footsteps on crisp grass and looked up to see him. She smiled to herself, noticing that he wore jeans despite the heat. Most men wore shorts, unless they were in air conditioning or were self-conscious or vain. By the way he walked, she assumed he fell into the latter category.

Once again, she was seated beneath his tree. She told herself it was due to the fact that the spot was superior to her last one but, if she was being honest, she had enjoyed the few words they had exchanged the night before.

"Are you an insomniac?" She called out as he approached, resisting the urge to shut the notebook and concentrate on conversation.

"Are you a prying whore?" He snapped irritably. She jerked back in surprise, not having expected such an aggressive response. Then, relaxing, she laughed.

"So people tell me." He gave her a look that was a mixture of curiosity, confusion and contempt and she smiled at him.

He dug into his pocket and removed a small box. She watched curiously as he proceeded to deftly roll a cigarette.

"I've never seen that done before," she noted as he lit his cancer stick and took a drag. "I thought only the truly pretentious did it these days." He didn't answer and she jumped at the chance for a snide remark. "Not that you disprove such a theory."

"Why are you bothering me?" He groaned. "Why are you here? Go home and leave me alone."

"I'm studying," she replied, not really untruthfully. "I'm doing a degree in mechatronic engineering," she added, for no reason other than to boast. "What are you studying?" She asked the question with genuine curiosity, unable to imagine him out of the context of a dark figure smoking beneath a tree. She couldn't help but assume he was studying something she would consider 'lesser'. As hard as she tried, she could not have the same respect for a degree in business as she did for the one she herself was aiming to achieve. She knew it was proud and presumptuous of her, but it was a belief that was almost ingrained in her, the concept that one sort of knowledge could be better than another, based on how difficult she found it to achieve.

"I'm doing my Masters."

"In what?" Even in the dark, it was hard to miss the weary look he gave her.

"Mathematics."

"Oh." It was a blow. She couldn't have that same feeling of superiority now as when she'd assumed he was doing a bachelor of arts or something. At least, though, she was going to have a career when she finished and he would just be left with his numbers and nothing else. HA. "Why maths?"

"I don't like people."

"I should have guessed."

"Don't you ever just shut the fuck up?"

**oOo**

When she got home the flat seemed too empty. She had spent so long silently bemoaning how over-crowded she felt with him there and as soon as he was gone she felt like she was bouncing around in a space far too large for her. She didn't even understand herself anymore.

She could see where he'd taken down the sports memorabilia that had always bugged her so much, and the photos of him with his friends had disappeared too. She remembered Krillin saying he had helped Yamcha move the afternoon before the hotpot. She would buy some art for the spaces that once bore signed cricket bats, football jerseys and baseball uniforms. The empty space was ugly in a way other spaces were not. They bore the mark of their previous ornaments, not physically, but in Bulma's mind.

She moved to the bedroom, intending to collapse into sleep, and stripped down as she walked. She bent to pick up her pyjamas and stopped.

He had left a pair of jeans beneath the bed. She picked them up like they were made of porcelain, fragile and brittle. She could smell him on them.

A magpie stared at her from a branch outside her window. It tilted its head curiously and stared her with black button eyes.

"Go away!"

She screamed it now, throwing the jeans at the window in a rage and then feeling her anger pour away as the bird flitted off.

"Come back," she whispered, crumpling into a ball on the floor.

She didn't sleep, but spent the morning sobbing into a pair of jeans he had rarely worn, anyway.

**oOo**

Eight months, is it? I wrote this today, only remembering the story as I went through my spreadhseets to delete the ones I didn't need anymore. Lucky you, it meant you got a chapter.

Review please.


	3. Paul, Paul of the Lantern Jaw

I tend to write in snippets, the short interchanges that go on between people and then mostly leave out what happens to characters on their own. In any college or high school fic, really, the story goes on when the characters interact, and the diatribes on what everyone's wearing and how omgz it was a rush to catch the bus today are boring and unnecessary. For the most part, you guys are not going to hear about what everyone's wearing. Who cares? Not me.

Chapter 3

Paul, Paul of the Lantern Jaw

"I see someone is looking super fat today."

Bulma glared at Julianna darkly, stirring an early morning wake-up iced chocolate. "Not all of us are compulsively athletic and obscenely thin, Juu. Some of us have to rely on fantastic breasts to get by in this world." The blonde girl sipped her coffee and decided that having marshmallows bobbing in the brew was not a good idea, making note not to order a... whatever the hell it was, again. "Speaking of the enviously thin," Bulma added, "I haven't seen Chichi for about a million years. Or a week, you know." To tell the truth, she hadn't seen a lot of Julianna in the past week, either. The taller woman had been smug and withdrawn, a sure sign that she had acquired a new man in her life. Bulma had been preoccupied too, working herself into a more normal sleep pattern and tentatively re-establishing her friendship with Yamcha in the hopes that someday they could feel somewhat comfortable around each other, like they had been before they'd tried to make a relationship of it.

Ju put down her mug and bit her lip anxiously. "I haven't seen much of Chichi. She hasn't been coming to class, and when I called her yesterday she said she was going to drop out." The incredulous look on Bulma's face said more than she could have expressed with words.

"Why?" The obvious question.

"She wouldn't say. She did say she needed to stay home to look after her Dad. I don't know if her Mum's left or something. Her parents seemed really happy, though, you know? Like yours, I guess." She couldn't keep the slight taint of bitterness out of her last statement, and Bulma winced. Parents had always been a sore spot with Juli, who had never met her mother and didn't even know whether she was alive or dead. Her father, never accused of being forthcoming, wouldn't even disclose whether she had died or left. It was this refusal that had forever alienated him from his daughter and prompted her to start working and leave home at only sixteen, refusing offers of assistance both financial and otherwise from family and friends alike.

When the conversation veered to parents, it was always a prompt to change the topic.

"In other news, I suspect you of having a new feller." The sly, triumphant look was confirmation enough for Bulma, who clapped her hands delightedly and forged onwards, Chichi's plight carefully filed away in her brain for retrieval at a later date. "When does everyone get to meet him?"

"We-ell..." Julianna had always maintained an air of secrecy around her love life, but had lately been allowing herself to introduce beaux to friends. Very charitable of her. "I was planning on hanging with everyone for lunch so maybe, just maybe, I'll invite him to pop in."

oOo

They were eating at the canteen. Well, laughing more than anything else. Krillin had daringly purchased a stir-fry and heated it in the communal microwaves. Now, all that was left was to poke the slush playfully and occasionally insist that one had seen something moving within. Goku's particular variation on the joke was particularly groan-inducing, and Krillin was already regretting trying to have a hot lunch for once.

"Krillin, I totally saw something move in your food. That's disgusting. I bet there's bugs or something in there. As you know, I have completed many biology subjects in the last year." Here, he always did his best to look intellectual. "As I am therefore an expert on human biology, you'd better let me eat that to check if it's going to, uh, upset your... human biology." If nothing else, Goku was persistent. Krillin pushed the plastic container towards his tall friend, finally giving up. It wasn't worth the hassle for $4.

Abruptly, Julianna stood up, her chair scraping loudly against the floor. Bulma couldn't resist a little squeal of expectation as Ju strode out of sight quickly, and quickly related the story of the other woman's new relationship to her friends. Her enthusiasm was infectious, and Ju's return was greeted by excited faces all around, even if at least one of her friends was only putting on a face for her benefit.

"Guys, this is Paul. He's in my journalism classes." Most present were willing to reserve opinions on 'Paul' for once they had gotten to know him but it was obvious to Krillin, at least, that Paul was a dick of the worst kind. That is, the kind that everyone loves. Tall, lantern-jawed and straight-toothed, he was well-muscled without being overbearing with blonde hair tousled just enough to look healthy and clean whilst also appearing as though the owner didn't devote his life to its upkeep. Clearly a dickhead. The casual way he slung his arm around Julianna's waist while he cracked jokes with Goku and Yamcha shitted him off, and he maintained a stony face while everyone else laughed at some old joke.

It wasn't that he was jealous, of course. Oh no, Krillin couldn't be jealous of a dickhead like Paul, especially not over a bitch like Ju.

"So, Paul, dating Ju I expect you get a lot of action." The words were out before he could stop them, and everyone was staring at him, wide-eyed.

"Uh, what?" Shit, he had one of those deep, manly man-voices that girls loved. He probably sang like a damn angel.

"Well, the reason she jumps from one guy to the next so often is that she has insane amounts of sex until she gets bored and needs to move on, right? I'm surprised you can even walk." He was the only one laughing, and it wasn't real laughter. It was scratching his throat. Paul was obviously bewildered. Krillin wanted to die. If the look on Julianna's face was any indication, he was going to be getting his wish very soon.

"I, uh, I gotta go. See you later, Juli." He landed a quick peck on his girlfriend's cheek and hightailed it out of the common room as fast as he could.

There was a long moment of silence in which everyone stared at Julianna, muscles bunched and ready to run if necessary.

When she finally spoke it was in a soft, slow hiss instead of the angry yell they had all been expecting.

"You stupid little twat. What do you think gives you the right to do that to me?" She planted her hands on the table and leaned across it menacingly. "Just to let you know, if you ever say even one word to me again, I will pull out your eyeballs and scoop the brains out of your head with a spoon and feed them to stray cats. Are we clear? Alright." She sat back down in her seat smoothly, calmly. Lunch was a sombre affair.

oOo

Goku didn't know what was up with Chichi either. According to him, she left for a lecture and told him she'd be working that night but she just never came home. When he called her, she told him she was fine, staying with her Dad for a bit, and that she'd drop off her half of the rent soon. He had been surprised to learn that she hadn't been turning up for classes and instantly became fretful. Julianna, in a deep sulk, had declined to join Goku and Bulma on a trip to see if she was okay and Bulma hadn't felt comfortable asking Yamcha. As for Krillin, well, Bulma had resolved not to speak to him ever. Or at least for the next few days.

They caught the train to the neighbourhood and walked the few blocks to the small house Chichi had grown up in, mildly puzzled by the amount of cars parked along the roadside in the narrow street. A woman Bulma vaguely recalled being a friend of the Mau family was packing several children into a battered car outside the house.

Their sharp raps on the door were answered by a harried-looking Chichi with messy hair and a red, swollen face. Her expression was somewhere between disappointment and bewilderment. The bones in her neck and collarbone seemed too prominent and Bulma wondered if she'd lost weight. A thought of Yamcha fluttered at the back of her mind but she squashed it with the ease of practice.

"Guys, you shouldn't be here. I told you I was fine. You... you shouldn't have come."

Bulma's temper flared. She should be thanking them for coming, for caring about her. She should be thanking them for making the effort to find out she was okay and not ill or something.

"Chichi, what's up? Why are you being such a jerk? We just want to make sure you're okay. You've missed your classes and -"

"I dropped out, alright Bulma? Just give it a rest, okay, not everyone's a bloody genius and not everyone's as well off as you. I need to work full time to support my Dad now and I just don't have the time. It was nice to know you, have a good life." She was ignoring Goku, pointedly not looking at him as though she could make him disappear by not paying him any attention, but when she moved to close the door he held it open.

"Chichi, what's up? I'm worried about you. You don't look okay." She averted her eyes when he tried to meet with them. "Are you sick?" She shook her head and stared at the ground. "Is your Dad sick, is that why he needs you around, because I could come and help too and that way you wouldn't have to quit?" She smiled tautly and blinked rapidly, shaking her head.

"My Dad..." she was speaking almost too softly to be heard. "The company my Dad worked for went under. He won't get his severance pay or his super or anything. He's trying to find a new job but nobody wants to hire someone starting out in their fifties, you know? I need to work full time now. Sorry about the rent. Maybe you could move in with Krillin? Yamcha? I don't know. I'm sorry." She closed the door so suddenly Goku didn't have time to reach out and stop it and, although they knocked on the door repeatedly, it did not open again. An elderly neighbour emerged from her house bearing a casserole dish and made her way up the drive. The two young friends left, unsure of what else they could do.

On the train ride into the city they tried calling the house 3 times, but no one picked up.

oOo

End of chapter! Hurrhurr, no. It wouldn't be IoS without surly mathematicians, right?

oOo

Julianna and Paul were being Publicly Passionate (also an acronym for Pushy Pricks, but that's another story) where Bulma usually sat, and she couldn't stand that right now. The science common rooms smelled funny ever since someone thought a good prank would be leaving a cadaver's finger to rot in the sink for a week, and the engineering common rooms were all the way over the other side of campus. All that was left to her were the math common rooms. If she was being perfectly honest, the engineering common rooms weren't that far away but math students were weirder and more interesting to covertly observe. Besides, she was doing like 3 maths subjects this semester, so she felt she had a real place in that room.

If she were to be even more honest, to the point of brutality, she would confess that what she first noticed when she entered the common room was exactly what she'd been hoping for. There he was, sitting on the couch scribbling in a ratty notebook he had perched on his knees. She hadn't seen him in the past week, thanks to her re-regulation of her sleeping patterns and she immediately flounced over to him. He apparently failed to notice her until she flopped down next to him and smiled.

"Fuuuck."

"Watch your language, young man. Someone ought to wash out your mouth with soap." She smiled playfully as she turned on her laptop.

"I thought I'd gotten away from you at last." He crossed something out in his notepad, his pen digging into the paper and scratching at it angrily.

"I've been trying to sleep normal hours lately."

"I think you should sleep every hour. It would spare the rest of us from you."

"I think the word you were looking for there was not 'spare' but 'deprive'. It's a subtle difference."

"Fuck you."

She cocked her head to one side quizzically and examined him critically. "Comebacks are not your strong suit, huh?"

"I already told you I don't like people. Ergo, I do not like speaking to people. Ergo, I do not speak to people. Ergo, I have no need for comebacks."

"You're speaking to me."

"You won't leave me the fuck alone."

"How old are you?"

"What?" He looked up at that one, apparently thrown by the incongruity of the question. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm 17, I'm in my second year. I want to know if you're too old for me." He stared at her. She delighted in the fact that she could bewilder him like this. It made for a fun game, to see just how much she could throw him off his tracks. So far it was pretty easy.

"Do you have any sexually transmitted diseases?" She had to work to keep her voice serious now, leaning forward so she was almost touching him. He smelled like cigarettes.

"What?" He scooted backwards slightly."I... no! What is wrong with your brain?"

Damn, he'd answered that one, but he did seem really distressed, even if distress did seem to translate, for him, to an angry growl in his voice and a deeper frown. "How many girls have you slept with?"

"What business is it of yours?" He'd stopped scooting backwards and leaned forward now, growling. She swallowed and wondered if he really was distressed by her questions, as she had thought, or if she'd just been making him angry and now he was going to tear her in half and feast upon her innards.

"I think it's something I have to know." Her voice wavered slightly, but she kept a brave face. "Because you have a pretty good body, but I don't want to accidentally have some sort of lewd dream about you if you're actually some kind of man-whore."

Apparently, he figured that nasty just wasn't going to scare her away, because he closed his notebook and slid it into a bag at his feet and stood up as though to leave. "If you ever bug me again, I'll make you regret it."

"By tearing me in half and feasting upon my innards?"

"Yes", he monotoned, his expression blank. "By tearing you in half and feasting upon your innards."

Score:

Bulma: One, Mathematicians of the world: Zero

oOo

I feel that it is your duty to give me reviews, lest I tear you in half and feast upon your innards.

And now! Yea! Verily! Lo! I shall address reviews INDIVIDUALLY. That's right, folks, ALL TWO REVIEWERS RECEIVE AN INDIVIDUAL MESSAGE HERE! OMGZ! You could get this too, for the price of just one review!

Ragond: Haha! Zomg! I never imagined someone who read the first chapter would find and read the second chapter. Crazies! Thank you for your interest, it is very heartening.

Heiress2thethrone: Thank you very much! I'm glad you see the humour in their conversations XD Also: Totally Vegeta. I don't think I'm spoiling any suspense here folks, you were pretty much supposed to guess it because she's too busy asking him insanely personal questions to inguire after his name XD


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